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New language partnership will enrich learning

The Intensive American Language Center (IALC) on the Pullman campus moved its classrooms and staff to Daggy Hall this summer after the decommissioning of Kruegel Hall, which previously housed the center.

The IALC is where international students learn and polish their English and knowledge of American customs through beginner, undergraduate and graduate programs. In addition to the IALC moving its staff and class spaces, the IALC’s Learning Support Center found a new home in Thompson Hall through a partnership with CAS’s School of Languages, Cultures and Race, which runs the Language Learning Resource Center (aka Language Lab).

Having the IALC’s Learning Support Center and the Language Lab in one place will provide WSU students taking foreign language classes and international students studying English the opportunity to learn from each other at the same location.

Carmen Lugo-Lugo.
Lugo-Lugo

“This partnership provides a nexus for language and cultural exchange that can benefit both groups of students,” said Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo, director of the School of Languages, Cultures and Race.

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WSU Insider

 

Experts say Washington elections are secure: ‘People have gotten sucked into a lot of lies’

Mistrust of system persists despite no evidence of voter fraud

In the early morning on Nov. 4, 2020, Donald Trump stood at a lectern in the White House and told a throng of cheering supporters he’d won the presidential election.

“We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the election,” Trump wrote on Twitter hours earlier. “We’ll never let them do it.”

Trump hadn’t won and provided no evidence to support his claims of fraud.

In the following weeks and months, state and federal courts dismissed dozens of cases filed by the Trump campaign and its supporters that alleged fraud and election law violations. The president’s own Department of Homeland Security called the 2020 election the most secure in U.S. history.

Cornell Clayton.
Clayton

Cornell Clayton, a Washington State University political science professor and director of the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy, said allegations that the 2020 election was rigged shouldn’t be taken seriously.

“The problem with suggesting there are two sides to the debate is it assumes there are two sides that have evidence,” Clayton said. “There’s no evidence behind these objections that have been raised and we should have full faith and confidence in our election system.”

Sowing doubt about the integrity of elections could cause irreversible damage to American democracy, Clayton said.

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The Columbian

George Washington (didn’t) sleep here: Quoting the founders in the 21st century

It’s fashionable in some circles today to quote America’s founders to justify a modern viewpoint, lend credence to a personal view, or simply trash someone you disagree with.

Ben Franklin’s remark “A republic – if you can keep it” is commonly deployed to criticize political views on the left and the right. Another quote, attributed to Thomas Jefferson, says one reason for people to own personal weapons is to protect themselves from the government. (For the record, Jefferson never said that.) A handful attributed to James Madison warn readers not to trust the federal system he helped create.

The images – typically following a predictable template of a quote superimposed on an oil painting of a colonial leader – seem to imply that the founders’ generation has a final-word opinion or dark warning that fits every issue modern society faces.

Lawrence Hatter.
Hatter

But that’s the catch, says Washington State University’s Dr. Lawrence Hatter. The quotes you see on social media to justify everything from banning abortions, to anti-government views, to total freedom for firearms, are often taken out of context, and sometimes – as in the Jefferson example — apocryphal.

“If you had a question about what the founders thought about something, which I think is a perfectly legitimate thing,” Hatter said. “Then begin with a question. Don’t begin with a conclusion.”

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Spokane Public Radio

Future student-exchange to Germany explores resilient, high-yielding crops

Students from Washington State University will travel to Germany next summer for a new research exchange program exploring complex plant traits underlying resilience and yield.

Funded by a $300,000 award from the National Science Foundation’s International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) initiative, the 10-week program expands WSU’s partnership with Germany’s CEPLAS — the Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences, which integrates the resources of the Universities of Cologne and Düsseldorf, the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, and the Forschungszentrum Jülich research institute.

Mechthild Tegeder.
Tegeder

“Bridging the U.S. with Germany, this new program offers students an unmatched opportunity to learn how crop research advances happen through international cooperation,” added Mechthild Tegeder, co-lead and professor in WSU’s School of Biological Sciences. “The new perspectives our students will gain from this program will be critical to their future success in the increasingly global world of plant science.”

Knowledge gained by this fundamental research could pave the way for new crop plants that are more productive and robust against environmental challenges, leading to sustainable, efficient cultivation of crops for food, fodder, and energy.

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WSU Insider

Self-pollinating plant shows rapid loss of genetic variation

Without bumble bees, a flowering plant that can self-pollinate lost substantial genetic variation within only nine generations, an experimental study found.

A group of “selfing” monkeyflower plants lost 13% to 24% of their genetic variation compared to another group that were propagated by bumble bees. This loss could rob the plants of their ability to adapt to environmental challenges, according to the study published in the journal Evolution. With bee populations on the decline in nature, the findings point to serious issues for wild plants and crops that rely on these pollinators.

Jeremiah Busch.
Busch

“We found that in a very short amount of time, there were major consequences on the genomes of the plants when they had to adopt selfing,” said Jeremiah Busch, a Washington State University evolutionary biologist and lead author on the study.

Pollinators like bees are important to biodiversity in their own right, Busch added, but the study indicates that their decline will also have potentially devastating impacts on plants, and quickly.

“If pollinators are lost, it’s not just going to be a problem for the pollinators: plant populations will lose genetic variation in tens of generations—not thousands, but tens,” said Busch.

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Phys.org
WSU Insider